Wartime Beginnings

EARLY IN 1942, an
historic decision was made by the British war-time government and American
military officials to build a United States Army Air Force base on a plateau
close to the village of Stansted Mountfitchet in Essex.

The first American unit, the 817th Aviation Engineering
Battalion, arrived at Renfrew Farm on 8th August 1942. They were met by
Mr. Grossman, the manager of the farm owned by a Jewish community in London’s
East End. The battalion’s role was to begin the conversion of the
typical English green fields into a huge military airfield. They would
have been unaware, at that time, that over fifty years later their early
efforts would culminate in the establishment of the third airport for
London, with one of the world’s most state-of-the-art terminal buildings.

The 817th Battalion left Stansted in November 1942 and
their work was continued by the 825th Aviation Battalion who had arrived
at the Essex site in October. The 825th completed the airfield roads,
as well as the control tower, fire station and motor transport section,
before leaving in December 1943.

Work on the runways and taxiways began in May 1943 with
the arrival of the 850th Aviation Engineering Battalion who remained at
Stansted until April 1944.

By October 1943 Stansted had become the largest 9th
USAAF base in East Anglia covering 3,000 acres, designated AAF Station
No 169, and equipped with a main runway 6,000ft x 1 SOft and two subsidiary
runways, each 4,2001t x 150ft.

In February 1944, the 344th Bombardment Group, squadrons
494,495, 496, and 497 moved in and flew their first operational mission
on 6th March 1944. In September 1944, the Group moved to France.

Stansted also became an important maintenance base for
aircraft of the 8th and 9th Air Forces operating from bases throughout
East Anglia.

Wartime Scenes

Following the end of the European War, Stansted was
used as a ‘Rest & Rehabilitation’ centre for American
troops including the famous 82nd and 100th Airborne Units, on their way
home to the USA.

The USAAF withdrew from Stansted in August 1945 and
the airfield was handed over to the Royal Air Force Maintenance Unit No
263 on 31st December.

Nearly 100 USAAF units were stationed at Stansted. Representatives
of one of these, the 30th Depot Repair Squadron Association presented
Stansted with a bronze memorial plaque to commemorate their stay from
17th August 1943 to 5th October 1944.The 344th Bomb Group Association
also presented a memorial plaque, during the airport’s 50th Anniversary
event in 1992.

Life in the UK

THE SEA JOURNEY from
the United States took around twelve days and nights. The vessels used
were often Liberty Ships able to carry about two thousand men. Ports of
arrival were usually Gourock in Scotland, or Liverpool.

The Americans were always pleased to be back on dry
land after crossing the Atlantic Ocean but they then had to endure long
train journeys to Bishop’s Stortford Station, before boarding trucks
for the final journey to Stansted.

Their personal recollections recall the strange experience
of travelling at night, through towns darkened by the war time ‘black-out’.
They soon realised that ‘The War’ was very close to British
people with nearly every other man in uniform and many women working in
jobs previously done by the men. The visible evidence of German bombing
also gave the Americans their first experience of the reality of war.

People in the Stansted area soon developed friendships
with the ‘Yanks’ after their arrival in the summer of 1942.

The Yanks quickly grew fond of the many hospitable pubs
in and around Stansted and Bishop’s Stortford. The Ash at Burton
End and Stansted’s Dog & Duck, still look today very similar
to their traditional appearance of fifty years ago, despite some modernisation
over the period.

The Barley Mow in Stansted is now a private house, while
in Bishop’s Stortford, only the Nags Head survives, The Reindeer
and Grapes pubs having long since made way for more shops.

Saturday night dances in Long’s Ballroom, Bishop’s
Stortford were very popular despite the occasional ‘friendly punch-ups’.
Long’s remained an important centre for social activities for many
years after the war, until it too was demolished in 1988 to make room
for a modern shopping arcade.

Another
popular venue, situated in the Causeway Bishop’s Stortford, opened
in 1943.This was a special hostel and canteen for American servicemen.
The club had accommodation for 300 ‘residents’ together with
large lounges, a reading-room, dining-room, barber’s shop, tailor’s
shop and shower rooms.

A local paper of that period reported that The Lord
Lieutenant of Essex received from the Commanding Officers of various American
Units stationed in the county the most remarkable tributes to the kindness
of the people of Essex at Christmas time 1943.

A typical extract, quoted from a letter by a Brigadier
General stated: “The County of Essex has been most kind to us throughout
our stay. We have all made many good friends here, whom we will remember
with pleasure in many years to come.”

The hospitality was reciprocated by the Americans in
many ways, including a special War Orphans Fund, organised by the “Stars
& Stripes” newspaper and, as a result, the 344th Engineering
Battalion adopted a local nine year-old orphan, whose parents had been
killed in an air raid. Life in the UK for some Americans during the war
years was no picnic. Some of their impressions are vividly described in
the poem “England 1944” written by an unknown ‘Yank
in England’. The poem is reproduced below.

ENGLAND
1944Where the heavy dew whips through
the breeze
And you wade through the mud up to your knees
Where the sun don’t shine, and the rain falls free
And the fog is so thick you can hardly see.

Where we live on brussels sprouts and Spam
And powdered eggs which ain’t worth a dam,
In town you eat fish and spuds
And down the taste with a mug of suds.

You hold your nose when you gulp it down,
It hits your stomach, then you frown,
For it burns your tongue, makes your throat feel queer,
It’s rightly called ‘Bitters’, it sure ain’t
beer.

Where the prices are high and the queues are long
And those Yank G.1.’s are always wrong.
Where you get watered Scotch at four bits a snort,
And those Limie babies don’t stand short.

And the pitch black nights when you start out late
It’s bloody black that you can’t navigate.
There’s no transportation so you’ll have to hike,
And you get your can knocked off by some damn bike.

Where most of the gals are blonde and bold
And they think that every Yank’s pockets are lined with gold.
Then there are the Piccadilly Commandos with painted allure,
Steer clear of them or it’s burnt for sure.

This Isle ain’t worth saving I don’t think
Cut the cables, let the damn thing sink.
I ain’t complaining but I’ll let you know
Life is rougher than a cob in the E.T.O.

Missions

THE 344th Bombardment
Group’s first mission from Stansted took place on March 6th 1944
when 37 Marauders pressed home an attack against targets at Conches, in
France.

During one of the early missions the Group suffered
its first major accident. Two Marauders of 494 Squadron collided in mid-air
as they emerged from the clouds. Both planes plummeted to earth carrying
all twelve crew members to their deaths.

Despite this tragedy, the rest of the crews proceeded
to their target, Soesterberg, Holland and braving intense anti aircraft
fire succeeded in dropping hundreds of bombs on the target with good results.
Fourteen of the 52 Marauders that reached the target were damaged by enemy
‘flak’ but there were no further losses to crews or aircraft.

D-Day, 6th June 1944 was a memorable day for the 344th
Bombardment Group when they had the honour of leading the 9th USAAF into
action against beach defences, prior to landing-craft assaults by the
Allied Ground Forces as part of Operation Overlord.

Fifty-six Marauders took off from Stansted shortly after
04.00 hrs on that historic day. The Group flew in three formations across
the English Channel and dropped many hundreds of bombs on heavy coastal
gun batteries situated on the Cherbourg Peninsular and nearby Normandy
invasion beaches.

During the summer of 1944 the 344th Bombardment Group
continued their support of the allied invasion, and moved their base from
Stansted to France in September to be nearer the centre of operations.

They received a Distinguished Unit Citation for three
days of action on 24th, 25th and 26th of July 1944.

The ‘Silver Streaks’ carried out 266 missions
and dropped a total of some 7,000 tons of bombs on enemy targets during
their offensive operations in Europe.

Aircraft

THE SQUADRONS of
the 344th were equipped with Martin B26 Marauder twin-engined bombers.

The B26 was considered to be one of the sleekest shaped
aircraft to see action in the Second World War.

During its early flights, the medium type bomber gained
plenty of notoriety due to its poor climb performance, fast landing speed
and practically non-existent single-engine capability.

The aircraft became known as “The Widow Maker”
due to the plane’s alarmingly high accident rate. Design
and training improvements however proved successful and the Marauder found
its niche operating against targets in Europe from Stansted and other
East Anglian airfields. Consequently, the Marauder survived its earlier
reputation and became one of the most successful allied bombers with combat
losses of less than one-half of one percent during the European campaign.

D-DAY

Invasion Spearhead

OPERATION OVERLORD, the
invasion of Europe was the greatest single military operation of the war.

It was mounted by the largest military assault force
ever prepared in recorded history and was planned in absolute secrecy.
The Stansted aircraft were part of the Essex based USAAF 9th Air Force
which was reconstituted on 16th October 1943 to become part of that massive
fleet of nearly 16,000 aircraft and gliders used by the Allies in Operation
Overlord and the following battle for Europe.

The 9th Air Force was equipped with more than 1,100 bombers,
some 3,000 troop-carrier aircraft and gliders and over 200,000 personnel
and, numerically had become the strongest air force in the world, averaging
in good flying weather as many as 2,000 sorties a day.

Stansted was home to the 344th Bombardment Group, the
322nd were at Great Saling, the 323rd at Earls Colne, the 386th were at
Boxted and Great Dunmow, and the 387th were based at Ongar.

The Essex bombardment groups played a major part in
the pre-invasion air offensive in the early months of 1944, “softening
up” installations to pave the way for the forthcoming invasion.

By May 1944, highly accurate pinpoint bombing raids
were carried out daily against targets that included all types of enemy
transport, communication lines such as railway marshalling yards, roads,
canals and rivers connecting and supplying the Nazi anti-invasion coastal
defences in addition to airfields, gun positions, ammunition storage dumps
and V-l flying bomb installations.

The raids were carefully planned so as not to reveal
the exact location of the invasion beaches and to confuse the enemy about
the actual intentions of the Allied forces.

As the invasion date came closer, the Essex based bombers
began the systematic destruction of all major railway and road bridges
crossing the Seine from Paris to the English Channel and at the same time
carried out difficult precision bombing attacks against the large anti-invasion
gun and infantry positions on the French coast.

Just a few hours before the cross-Channel invasion was
due to commence, the bombardment groups received special orders to paint
black and white stripes around the wings and fuselages of all aircraft
to help with recognition by Allied forces.

D-Day Missions

ON D-DAY, Stansted’s
‘Silver Streaks’ led the formations of Marauder bombers to
attack the coastal defences on the beaches selected for the troop landings.

The nickname ‘The Silver Streaks’ for the
344th Group resulted after the Marauder crews had stripped their aircraft
of the camouflage paint leaving a natural aluminum finish.

The camouflage was considered no longer necessary as
raids over East Anglian airfields were virtually non-existent.

‘The Silver Streaks’ had a reputation for
accurate bombing which was vital as their D-Day sorties were timed to
take place just a few minutes before the first troops hit the beaches.

The crews had been briefed to make their attacking runs
at 5,000 feet or even 1,000 feet if necessary to get under the low cloud
over their targets.

The low level runs were essential to provide the accuracy
on which perhaps thousands of lives of the invading troops would depend.

Normally they were briefed to bomb targets above 10,000
feet so the low level briefing included a warning of possible heavy casualties.

However, only two of the 450 Marauders used in the attack
failed to return.

250-pounder bombs were used instead of the 2,000-pounders
normally carried by the Marauders, to avoid creating crater obstacles
for the Allied tanks.

The bombing run along the invasion beaches only lasted
about 15 seconds, then the Marauder Groups had to make a wide detour across
the Cherbourg Peninsular for their return to England.

The detour was necessary following an instruction to
the Marauder pilots to “Get the hell out of there” because
over fifteen hundred Flying Fortresses were timed to blast defences behind
the beaches just five minutes later.

After safely landing back at Stansted, at the end of
the historic mission, all of ‘The Silver Streak’ combat crews
were proud to have been part of the D-Day spearhead.

Following the D-Day landings the German air and ground
commanders almost unanimously agreed that the 9th Air Force missions were
a decisive factor in the success of Operation Overlord.

Herman Goering was quoted as saying: “The Allies
owe the success of the invasion to their air forces. They prepared the
invasion; they made it possible; they carried it through.”

Commendation

All the Allied senior officers were delighted with the
success of the air missions and as the Essex based American bombers continued
their attacks on Nazi forces, the Commanding General of the 9th Air Force
issued the following message of commendation on 8th June 1944:

‘I
feel it a distinct personal privilege to be your Commander and to congratulate
each officer and every man of this air force on magnificent, individual
and collective efforts in preparation for this battle.

“Your past operations have been marked by relentless destruction
of enemy installations and equipment bringing once again brilliant achievement
to this command. I am more than gratified by the results.

“Today the 9th Air Force is participating in the greatest campaign
of them all.

“With our gallant Allies we take the offensive to exterminate this
ruthless foe.

“I am confident that you will give your utmost and with resolute
courage and firm determination pay any human price in the destruction
of this common enemy. Go to it. God speed and good luck. I am proud to
be one of you and your Commander.”

The First Airlines

BY EARLY 1946 all
flying at Stansted had ceased and the hangars on the airfield were used
to store war surplus equipment from other closed airfields in East Anglia,
with German prisoners of war assisting with equipment handling.

However, although it was still under the control of the
Royal Air Force, some time in December 1946 London Aero Motor Services
(LAMS) moved to Stansted and were described by the local newspaper as
“Squatters with 17 Bombers”.

LAMS was set up by a Dr Graham Humby, owner of Grosvenor
Square Garages. It operated from Stansted with six brand new Handley Page
Halton aircraft, which were surplus Halifax bombers converted for civilian
use.

Originally LAMS leased Elstree airfield, but the grass
runway there proved to be impractical and in December 1946 a couple of
LAMS aircraft were sent on a reconnaissance of closed airfields to find
a suitable replacement.

As a result Captain Dennis Leach made the first civilian
flight at Stansted when he landed to check it out, despite the fact the
airfield was closed! Mr. Leach still lives in the Stansted area.

On 23rd April 1947 LAMS commenced its world-wide tramping
service when Halton G-AIWT left Stansted for New Zealand. It returned
six weeks later with seven tons of dripping - a gift from Australia to
the rationed “poms”**.

It would appear that, although LAMS was already flying
from Stansted, negotiations with the Ministry of Civil Aviation were very
protracted and it was not until the day G-AIWT returned — Thursday
5th June 1947 — that Stansted officially opened as a civilian airport.

1947 also saw the start up of Kearsley Airways, with
a Percival Procter and three Douglas DC3s. These aircraft were very busy
flying passengers and cargo from Stansted to all over the world, with
one covering over 30,500 miles in less than a year.

Loads included fruit, textiles and racing pigeons, with
one arrival at Stansted being a piebald donkey from Khartoum bound for
London Zoo.

The next year saw Alpha Airways join LAMS and Kearsley
Airways at Stansted, with passenger charters to Johannesburg. Their single
Halton carried 18 passengers.

However, the independent airlines found it increasingly
difficult to operate in a very restrictive and nationalised environment
and while sadly LAMS and Alpha ceased trading at the end of the forties,
Kearsley Airways diversified into overhauling aircraft components and
is still based at Stansted.

Sir Freddie Laker Arrives

THE END of the Second
World War left a lot of aircraft spares about. Also, there were many training
and cargo aircraft that could be used for civilian purposes.

A young entrepreneur called Freddie Laker, formerly
a LAMS flight engineer, saw such an opportunity and, initially using a
lockup garage in Streatham, built up a parts and maintenance base at Southend
airport in 1947 under the name of Aviation Traders.

By 1951 the maintenance side of the business had grown
so much that Aviation Traders (Engineering) Limited leased a hangar at
Stansted and so Sir Freddie’s association with Stansted recommenced.

To make way for Aviation Traders several red London
Transport double deck buses and Green Line coaches stored at Stansted
after the war had to be removed.

1951 also saw Freddie Laker branch out into the airline
business, with the purchase of Surrey Flying Services and Fairlight. As
Air Charter London he started passenger and trooping charter flights from
Stansted with AvroYorks and Tudors. Destinations included the Woomera
rocket range in Australia and the nuclear testing centre on Christmas
Island in the South Pacific.

The next year the engineering operation had taken over
another hangar. This time surplus Miles Marathon four engined airliners
had to be removed from it and scrapped.

Up to 1954 most of Aviation Traders’ work at Stansted
involved maintaining Avro York aircraft or dismantling them for spares.
It was also becoming a major centre for ex RAF spares, including engines,
tyres etc.

A big boost came in 1954 when Aviation Traders secured
a contract to build Bristol Freighter fuselage sections and got financial
backing to buy up all the remaining Avro Tudor aircraft to convert them
into “Super Traders”. It also won a contract to refurbish
100 ex RAF F86E Sabre jet fighters.

The Avro Tudor conversion involved making a double freight
door on the port side of the aircraft, strengthening the floor and upgrading
the main landing gear and braking system.

In 1948 Silver City Airways had commenced a car/air
ferry service between Lympne and Le Touquet using the Bristol Freighter.
By the mid fifties there were several such services and in April 1955
Air Charter started its car air ferry routes out of Southend to Calais
and Ostend.

With Air Charter’s experience Laker saw there
was a need for a bigger aircraft and using Aviation Traders he converted
surplus wartime four engined DC4/C54 Skymaster aircraft into car transporters
at Stansted.
Named the Carvair it was capable of carrying up to six cars and 23 passengers
with a range of 2,100 miles and under the British United Air Ferries name
in the 1960’s it opened up car/air ferry routes to Basle, Strasbourg
and Geneva.

In September 1958 Air Charter took delivery of two brand
new Bristol Britannia aircraft for its trooping flights to Hong Kong and
Singapore. On 1st April 1960 Air Charter become part of the British United
Airways group based at Gatwick.

BUA operated up to nine Bristol Britannias on trooping
flights from Stansted, but after the loss of the contract to British Eagle
at Heathrow, operations ceased at Stansted on 1st October 1964.

Aviation Traders remained at Stansted servicing the
Rolls Royce Tyne turbo-prop engines of the Bristol Britannia and the Pratt
and Whitney JT4 jets of the new Boeing 707.

Flying Troops from across the World

APART FROM Air Charter
London there were two A other major charter airlines based at Stansted
in the 1950’s - Skyways of London and Scottish Airlines. Both relied
for work on trooping contracts, which took their aircraft all over the
world.

Skyways of London commenced flights in October 19S2
with a fleet of AvroYorks and a large maintenance base with three hangars.
The airline’s fleet totalled 33 aircraft and in its first year 40,000
troops were carried and 2.9 million revenue miles flown.

In November 1953 Skyways launched a scheduled civilian
flight from Stansted to Nicosia via Malta. The single fare for the 14
hour flight in an unpressurised aircraft was (J75.This “Crusader”
service proved popular and in 1956 the Yorks were replaced with ex BOAC
Handley Page Hermes aircraft, which were pressurised.

In June 19S9 Skyways purchased four ex BOAC Lockheed
Constellations, but the cost of this and a failed joint venture in the
Bahamas with BOAC, brought closure in 1963 and purchase by Euroavia of
Luton.

Scottish Airways, although a smaller operation, earned
for itself rather more notoriety through a series of incidents.

The airline arrived at Stansted in 1953 from its home
base at Prestwick with three AvroYorks and a contract to fly RAF cadets
to Montreal. This was followed by another contract to the Middle East.

Its aircraft carried RAF roundels and its crews wore
RAF uniforms in case they were forced to land in hostile countries!

Other post war moments

On 24th September 1954 one of its York’s suffered
an undercarriage collapse whilst on its take off run at Stansted, which
in turn fractured a fuel tank and caused the aircraft to burn out. Miraculously,
all the servicemen and crew onboard escaped without serious injury.

In another incident in 1954 a Scottish Airways York
carrying cargo overran the runway at Luqa in Malta — again the crew
escaped unharmed.

But two years later - 1st May 1956 - in another take
off incident at Stansted, one serviceman was killed and others seriously
injured when once again the undercarriage of a York collapsed. This flight
also had service families onboard and included 14 children and four babies
among the 49 passengers on their way to Malta and Iraq.

A further accident at Stansted in December 1957 wrote
off yet another York and finally in September 1958 Scottish Airways ceased
operating.
However, Scottish Airways was not the only airline to have take off incidents
at Stansted with AvroYorks. In 1952 an Air Charter York bellied on the
runway.

Folk lore has it that on the take off run the skipper
of the aircraft had shouted to the flight engineer that he should “cheer
up”, where upon the flight engineer selected gear up! Fortunately
there were no injuries and the Aircraft was repaired to fly again.

The US Airforce Returns

FOLLOWING THE Korean
War, NATO defences were stepped up and Stansted was once again chosen
by the Americans for a base.

However, because of Stansted’s importance for
British trooping flights the airfield remained opened during the lengthening
of its main runway to 10,000 feet, by strengthening and widening the northern
taxiway into a temporary runway.

Over 66,000 passengers were flown using the taxiway
— in 1956 alone over 44,700 passengers used Stansted.

The work took from 1954 to ‘56 to complete and
included new taxiways and hard standings for nuclear bombers and improved
approach lighting.

But after the USAF engineers left in 1957 it was decided
not to turn Stansted into an operational base, leaving the airfield with
the longest runway in Britain, a fact that was to -play a major part in
its selection as the third airport for London.

Other Tenants

AVIATION TRADERS
and airlines were not the only A residents at Stansted in the 1950’s
and early sixties, it was also home to what are now the Civil Aviation
Authority’s Flight Calibration Service and Fire Service Training
Centre and to British European Airways (BEA) diversionary services.

The Flight Calibration Service, formerly known as the
Civil Aviation Flying Unit (CAFU), was formed at Stansted by the Ministry
of Aviation in 1950 from units previously based at Gatwick and Prestwick.

It originally consisted of a range of aircraft, including
DH Tiger Moths and Chipmunks, Austers, Airspeed Consuls and Avro Ansons.
By the early sixties these “war time” aircraft had been replaced
by Percival Princes and a President and DH Doves - one of which is preserved
at Duxford.

Apart from testing avionics and airfield navigation
systems, these aircraft were also used for government VIP transport and
a large workforce was employed at Stansted.

The Percival Princes were retired in 1969 and ironically
ended up on the fire ground of the Fire Training School. CAFU, reformed
in to the Flight Calibration Service, departed Stansted for Teeside on
26th March 1993.

The
Fire Service Training Centre, formerly the Ministry of Aviation Fire Service
Training School, arrived at Stansted in 1960 from Pengham Moor, Cardiff.
It occupied an area well away from the then passenger terminal on the
northside, near to the present cargo centre, and used the war time chapel
as its main lecture room.

Most of the fire training was done with scrapped airliners
and many of the aircraft no longer wanted by Stansted’s airlines
were disposed of in this way. Like CAFU, the school also moved on to Teeside
- in August 1981.

Both BEA and BOAC used Stansted for crew training, but
in addition BEA also out-based from Heathrow diversionary services at
the airport during winter months. This comprised traffic officers, engineers
and equipment.

Gateway to Britain

THE British Airports
Authority took control of Stansted, along with Heathrow, Gatwick and Prestwick
airports, on 1st April 1966 from the Ministry of Aviation.

The authority was set up under the Airports Authority
Act 1965 “to provide efficient, courteous, attractive and profitable
Gateways To Britain worthy of the Nation as a whole.”

The airport had grown to an annual throughput of over
105,000 passengers in 1963, but this had drastically fallen to under 4,000
by April 1966. War time nissen huts were still used for the passenger
terminal and offices and, in the main, flights consisted of charters,
diversions and those for training.

Compared to the importance of cargo in Stansted’s
early civilian days, freight totalled a pitiful 133 tons in 1965. Aircraft
movements totalled over 28,000 that year, with training accounting for
about 60 per cent.
In 1948 Stansted was considered, along with Gatwick, Blackbushe and Fairlop
(a war time fighter station near llford) for the position of main supplementary
airport to Heathrow. At that time it was considered that Heathrow would
have difficulty in coping with summer charter flights.

The
decision went in favour of Gatwick, with Blackbushe chosen as the principal
diversion airport, due to its close proximity to Heathrow.
The possibility of Stansted becoming a major airport surfaced again in
the early sixties, when an inter departmental committee looking at future
demand for air travel in London concluded that Heathrow and a two runway
Gatwick would be unable to handle all the air traffic of the London area
beyond 1972.

The committee looked at 18 possible sites and decided
that Stansted was the best of the sites and the “only one with a
clear prospect of making a successful third London airport.”

A public enquiry was held from December 1965 to February
1966, but it look two years for the report to be published. Its eventual
conclusion lead to a White Paper and the infamous Roskill Commission.

Your World Class Airport

LONDON STANSTED AIRPORT
was transformed in 1991 from a modest international airport to one which
can handle eight million passengers a year in a calm and pleasant environment.

With careful regard to the surrounding countryside,
the airy and spacious award winning new terminal appears to be a single
storey building, its overall height corresponding to that of nearby mature
trees. Its short stay car park, coach station and integrated railway station
are sited below ground level.

A wide range of scheduled destinations with convenient
onward connections to the rest of the world makes Stansted ideal for the
business traveller. For holidays, over 100 tour operators offer a comprehensive
choice of long and short haul destinations to suit all tastes.

The Stansted Skytrain rail link, with its 41 minute
journey time to Liverpool Street Station in the heart of the City of London
and the Ml 1 motorway, provide excellent access to the Airport.

The terminal can be extended to accommodate 15 million
passengers without disruption to its operations. With its up to date technology
and advanced construction London Stansted is at the forefront of international
airport design.

London Stansted is designed to take the stress out of
flying. Use London Stansted once and you will want to fly from nowhere
else.

Telephone Freephone 0800 118118 for information on scheduled
flights and holidays. London Stansted also publishes a guide to passenger
facilities.

Written by Derek Winter and researched
by Reg Robinson.
In memory of Peter Pallet whose historic records greatly helped in the
production of this booklet.

**Notes:

We were delighted in September 2007 to hear from Greg Weir, an aviation researcher from Queensland Australia who wrote:

"I found your website after typing a rego into Google. The rego was G-AIWT. I spent the day with Keith Thiele who was the pilot of thisaircraft - I have him on video talking abouthis time on Halifaxs after the war. During the war he flew Spitfires, Halifax's and Lancasters etc.

"I have found his logbook entries which show the aircraft arriving and leaving etc, I thought this information might interest your researchers mentioned on your website."

And in September 2010 we received this e-mail from Susan Acton-Campbell whihc we'll also be sending on to the BAA:

"There are some errors in the section titled “Life in the UK”. Before going into civil aviation Gordon was a radio officer in the Merchant Navy from 1940-1945 and acquired good maritime knowledge. Your web page states that sea journeys from the United States took around 12 days and nights. While this is correct for “Queen” ships (e.g. Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth) this was not the case for Liberty ships which had a journey time of 3 weeks. In addition Liberty ships were not used for carrying troops. They were 10,000 ton cargo ships with a crew of 35.

"You mention the ports of arrival were usually Gourock or Liverpool. The Queen ships landed at Gourack, Liverpool was not deep enough for Queen ships. Other passenger ships did use Liverpool.

"Another “hospitable pub” you might like to include is “The Three Willows”.

"Similarly to the correspondent who contacted you in 2007 my father still has his log book and I am happy to scan the entries and supply them if they would be of interest.

"In common with many aircrew my parents lived in a Nissen Hut on Stansted Aerodrome, that they rented as a peppercorn rent. This was converted into a very comfortable residence including a large bath bought from a local farmer who had been using it as a cattle trough. My sister, born in December 1948, spent her first year of life very healthily and happily living in that Nissen Hut."